Company Of Spears

even if it had sparked, could not have ignited damp powder in the firing pan. Later he had petitioned the board on behalf of an American inventor who had shown him an astonishing revolving-chamber pistol. The authorities had not been impressed, however. Other than for a few riflemen to act as skirmishers, they required an army that could volley, on command, for it was volley fire that broke up massed ranks and columns. Would the enemy be always so obliging as to come on in such a manner?

The Sixth were handy with their carbines at least, observed Hervey as he took post on the right flank with the other officers, allowing the dragoons a clear line of fire, for unlike the gunners they would load live cartridge. ‘By squadrons, carry on!’

The squadron officers now took over the practice.

‘Load!’

Ramrods clattered as dragoons tamped the one-ounce balls.

‘Front rank, even numbers, advance!’

One hundred dragoons pressed their troopers to the walk.

‘Halt!’

They checked, inclining right in the prescribed manner so as to be able to fire to the flank rather than over the horses’ heads.

‘Present!’

Up came the carbines to the aim, though there were no targets.

‘Fire!’

It was a good volley, but there were slow ignitions and misfires. Some of the horses shied; only one bolted. Hervey watched intently as next the odd numbers advanced half a dozen paces beyond the evens, presented and fired. And then the same again with the rear rank. Four volleys in all.

On the whole the horses stood them well, thought Hervey, but he could hardly be satisfied with the rate of misfires, and on a morning with not a touch of dampness in the air. ‘Very well,’ he said to the adjutant, as grey smoke drifted towards them. ‘Have them re-form in double rank.’

‘Sir.’

The adjutant moved to the front to give the executive commands, while the smoke rolled the length of the line, quite obscuring the front rank’s line of sight. Hervey wondered if here, too, science might not serve them better. Was it contrary to the nature of the elements to require powder to burn without excessive smoke? Was there such a thing as fire without smoke? Smoke stood in the way of observation on the battlefield; he had only to recall the day at Waterloo, when it had been the very devil of a job to see what the French did. More than once had the duke’s infantry fired on his own cavalry. But it was more than mere obscuration: every time a dragoon discharged his carbine he gave away his position. In line it mattered not at all, but on outpost duty it might make the difference between staying put or having to withdraw. Except that the weapon in these men’s hands possessed neither the range nor the accuracy to exploit the advantage of smokeless powder. Hervey shook his head. Here they were on Hounslow Heath going through the exact same evolutions of that day a dozen years ago, which was supposed to have been an end to the Grande Armee and the system that had need of it. There was no denying that there were armies still on the Continent, but he had seen enough in India these past six years to know there were other ways of war. If he, a mere acting-major of light dragoons, could see it, then there were sure to be those in the armies of France, and Russia and Austria – even Prussia – who could see it too. What if those armies were to embrace science (England had no monopoly in this field, even if she had the lead) and put to nought the superiority in drill and courage of His Majesty’s men? He was sure the Royal Navy would be thinking ‘scientifically’, for in the navy there was no disdain of innovation. Quite the opposite, indeed: he could not easily forget the steamship in the Rangoon river in the late war with Ava.

But now they would end the field day with an advance in line, sabres drawn, exactly as they had done at the close of Waterloo. At that glorious moment, too, Hervey had been at the head of the Sixth, the senior officer remaining in the saddle, though still but a cornet. Well, he had them again now, and on the same terms (for as long as it took to replace him); he had better let them have their gallop after all! And he had better do it exactly as the drill book prescribed.

He turned to his trumpeter, whose mare stood composed at last. ‘Draw swords!’

Corporal Parry, commanding officer’s trumpeter since the Sixth had come back from India, put the bugle to his lips and attacked the arpeggiando quavers and semi-quavers as if the enemy were before them. It was not the hardest of calls, but neither was it one to falter over at the end of a field day.

Out came four hundred sabres, more or less as one.

‘Forward!’

The simplest of the calls – just an E and a C, two semis and a quaver, repeated the once.

The line heaved forward, and the cursing began at once. Hervey fancied he recognized the NCOs’ voices – ‘Sit up, there!’ ‘Get back!’ ‘Close up, you idle man!’

‘Trot!’

Short, bumping quavers on C, E and G.

Every horse recognized the call, but on different notes. The line billowed like sheets in the wind. ‘Hold hard, damn you!’ ‘Get up, there! Get up!’ ‘Steady!’

Hervey glanced back. The sight was not propitious. But it was too late now. ‘Gallop!’

Corporal Parry blew creditably – the same notes, but in different time.

Hervey glanced over his shoulder again. The line was about as straight as a gaggle of driven geese. He might as well prove to them just how much drill they still had need of: ‘Charge!’

Corporal Parry managed the triplets admirably until the third repetition when he was bumped hard by a dragoon behind, and nearly lost a tooth.

Hervey heard him curse the man as foully as ever he’d heard from Armstrong. He glanced behind once more, saw the line of lofted sabres, and put his spurs into Gilbert’s flanks for more speed: he was damned if he was going to be overtaken by what looked like a band of irregulars. Great God, what work there was to be done yet!

II

THE GRIM REAPER

Later

When they were come back to Hounslow barracks, Hervey handed over the parade to the senior captain and rode to the commanding officer’s stables at the back of the officers’ house. Here were four loose boxes, altogether quieter and more comfortable than the standing stalls of the troop-horse lines. Private Johnson was waiting.

These days, Hervey considered Johnson more soldier-servant than groom; except that the RSM would dispute that he answered any longer to the description ‘soldier’ (and even ‘servant’ would not have done in any proper establishment). The care of Hervey’s two chargers, Gilbert, who had survived two crossings of the Equator and the siege of Bhurtpore, and Eliab, Jessye’s foal, was largely given to Private Toyne, a good coper who prior to joining the Sixth three years past had learned his business around the horse fairs of Westmoreland.

Johnson was now about thirty-seven years old (the details of his birth were not recorded comprehensively), a year Hervey’s senior, a single man still, with no home but that of the 6th Light Dragoons, which some were still pleased to call ‘Princess Caroline’s Own’ although the title had long since been officially withdrawn out of deference to the Prince Regent, now King George IV. Johnson was a contented man, on the whole, given to speaking his mind, not always with optimism but unfailingly with honesty and absolute loyalty. He had joined the Sixth before the Peninsular campaign, a boy of fifteen-ish, lately of a Hallamshire orphanage and the Barmby Furscoe deep coal mine. Twice, when fire damp had ignited, and the explosion had brought down the roof, Johnson had been buried along with the pit pony he had been leading, and so after the second explosion, two months before Trafalgar, he had joined the army, certain that it must be an altogether healthier and safer occupation. His subterranean